1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a storage medium storing a program of the information processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the processing speed and the image quality of an electrophotographic type printing apparatus and an inkjet printing method have been improved. Under such a circumstance, a print on demand (POD) market has expanded. In the POD market, digital printing based on electronic data is executed by making the most of a digital image forming apparatus, such as a digital copying machine or a digital multifunction peripheral (MFP). By using a digital image forming apparatus, which implements plateless printing, a job of a relatively small lot can be printed with low costs and in a short delivery time.
In the POD market, in which electronic data is used as its characteristic, variable data printing (VDP) is used as a print method. In a VDP document, which is used in the VDP, a fixed portion and a variable portion are separated from each other. In addition, data of the variable portion is supplied from a data source, such as a relational database (RDB) or a comma separated value (CSV) file. If a column (field) of the data source is associated with a variable portion of a template document and if the field associated with the variable portion of the template document is applied to each row (record) of the data source, print jobs having slightly mutually different contents can be executed.
On the other hand, in the field of commercial printing, an offset printing machine is predominantly used in executing jobs of a middle or a large lot. If an offset printing machine, which can generally output a print product with a high image quality compared to that output by a digital printing machine, is used, it is necessary to use a printing plate. Therefore, if the VDP is executed as in digital printing, it becomes necessary to prepare a large number of printing plates. In this case, the costs may become very high. Accordingly, this is not practical.
In recent years, offset printing-supplementary printing is used as a print method that can implement meritorious effects of an offset printing machine and a digital printing machine at the same time. In offset printing-supplementary printing, fixed objects of each record are printed on a sheet by using an offset printing machine and then variable objects of each record are digitally printed by using a digital printing machine (an inkjet type printing apparatus or an electrophotographic type printing apparatus). In the above-described manner, high-quality printing by offset printing and the VDP by digital printing can be implemented at the same time. An “object” herein refers to an image, a graphic, or a text.
In the offset printing-supplementary printing, the following problems may arise if an ink from a digital printing machine (in the following description, the “ink from a digital printing machine” may include a toner used by an electrophotographic type printing apparatus), which is provided to print a variable drawing object, is overlapped on an offset ink, which is provided to print a fixed drawing object.
Firstly, in the above-described case, a print product may not be printed in a color desired by a user. More specifically, a user recognizes a color of a spectrum of light reflected on a printing sheet after being incident to an ink used in the digital printing machine. Accordingly, the color that the user can recognize may be affected by a color of the offset ink on the sheet.
Therefore, the color that can be recognized by the user may be different from the color designated by the user on the premise that the job is printed on a blank (white) sheet. This is because the color of the offset ink, which has been previously provided on the printing sheet, and the ink from the digital printing machine, which is overlapped on the offset ink, are mixed together.
If the above-described problem is to be solved by color management that uses a color profile, it is necessary to generate a color profile for an effective combination of the offset ink and the ink from the digital printing machine. In order to implement the solution by color management, it is necessary to execute colorimetry processing for the number of times equivalent to the total number of colors of the colors reproduced by the offset ink and those reproduced by the ink from the digital printing machine. This may require the user to execute very complicated operations. Accordingly, this is not practical.
Secondly, if an electrophotographic printing apparatus is used as the digital printing machine, a toner image may be blurred or damaged due to possible defective toner transfer or fixation. If the offset printing-supplementary printing is executed, an image formation process using the toner from the digital printing machine is executed in a state in which the conductivity of a recording paper has been changed by the offset ink. Therefore, defective toner transfer or fixation may occur to cause damage or blur to a toner image.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-323813 discusses a method for unfilling a part of a fixed drawing object if the fixed drawing object is overlapped on a variable drawing object. However, if the above-described conventional method is used, the image quality may degrade if a drawing region of the variable drawing object changes record by record. In other words, it is necessary to unfill a part of a fixed drawing object in a region including a drawing region so that any drawing region of the variable drawing object may not be overlapped on the fixed drawing object.